In the middle of September I created a post discussing how the three political leaders of the UK (David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg) had joined Google+ in order to build on their media presence. Google’s social network was new and fairly unknown at the time making it surprising that these individuals (or the public relation people behind them) recognised the future value in creating Google+ profiles.
Both Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg have maintained updated profiles which allow the public to actively interact with their posts and media published. This gives the political leaders some sort of indication on what the Google+ community think of their thoughts and actions making it an excellent testing ground when used correctly. David Cameron’s last update was at the beginning of October making it clear that he (or his PR) were quick to give up on the social network; yet it’s interesting to note that he is still in more people’s circles than the other two party leaders, perhaps this proves that it’s worth having the Google+ presence regardless of whether a celebrity of influential figure is going to keep their profile updated. David Cameron can always return to that profile at a key time to promote himself and essentially target almost 140,000 people at the touch of a button.
By now you have most likely seen different famous icons from around the world join the ever growing social network but to keep relative to the subject I want to bring it to attention that Labour’s London mayoral candidate, Ken Livingstone, has joined Google+. The account has only recently been created so it will be interesting to monitor how the profile is used from a candidate’s perspective, what sort of success will be gained and whether it can have an impact during and leading up to the election period. These factors will depend on how effective Ken Livingstone manages the profile and whether he fully utilises Google+’s excellent features to interact directly with the British public, we have already seen Barack Obama address his nation live using Google+ Hangouts and constantly reach out to the public via posts.
Labour’s London mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone has now joined Google+